Nerdist Podcast

George RR Martin

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Nerdist Podcast: George R.R. Martin

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Recorded at Comic-Con 2013 in San Diego from his hotel room, it’s George R.R. Martin! He tells stories about the early days of comic book conventions, the journey of adapting his books to the screen, and football…!?

There’s a moment in this podcast… My Science… I just imagine George killing EVERYONE AT COMIC CON. HARDWICK! GET ON THAT YOUTUBE VIDEO!!! *I know I’m not your boss. But IT WOULD BE THE GREATEST YOUTUBE VIDEO EVER!*

I’m sure there’s an infographic about this, but someone should go through all the podcasts and put an infographic together based on Chris’ go-to question: “What do you do when you get writers block?” I’m curious what the general trend of fantasy, sci-fi, and comedy writers do when they’re faced with writer’s block.

I lost my company in 2006 to a sharky investor, and have been slowly but increasingly working toward rebuilding it, my way, ever since. Now that I’m finally at the edge of launching, I’m stuck, reassessing/panicking, considering shelving it all and looking for a much more comfy & profitable job with a paycheck and health insurance…

@Gary: it’s my favorite question, mainly because I have it a lot. I would LOVE to see that infographic. Though, what I’ve gathered is that most just push through it as best they can. Writing SOMETHING down, even if it seems unusable not only helps unstick the machine but also might take you in an unexpected direction. Your brain gives you a snapshot of what it thinks your limitations are but it’s usually not right and you don’t have to subscribe to it. Seriously, this podcast has been a master class in creation for me. I love that people enjoy it, but I personally have learned so much–perhaps more than my time in college. Can I just have a degree?

@Chris
Sure. I hereby bestow upon you the honorary degree of M.A. in the field of Creatology from the distinguished Creative University of Creativity (Est. 7/29/2013). Feel free to print this shit out, frame it, and hang it on your wall while humming the first few bars of ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ (which is the only part of that song that anybody really knows anyway). You also enjoy the distinction of being our only alumnus to date so we’d like to take this opportunity to hit you up for contributions to your old alma mater. Whaddya say?

On the subject of writer’s block, Pete Holmes and John Hodgeman actually had a conversation about this on the ‘You Made It Weird’ podcast that spoke to me. Hodgeman referenced cartoonist Lynda Barry who said that, rather than getting all in her head about it when she’s blocked, she just sits down and starts drawing random lines on a paper. Taking the spirit of this advice and applying it to writing, Hodgeman said that when he was blocked he would sit down and write nonsense words and that he would be amazed to find how fast this exercise would prompt his brain into producing usable material.

The moral of the story seems to be that the brain evolved in such a way that it allowed us to survive by taking random things from our environments and figuring out the most useful ways in which to rearrange them. In other words it’s a tool that naturally likes to take meaningless chaos and translate it into meaningful patterns. If you begin by letting yourself put some your nonsense out there your brain will generally tend to begin to do its job and establish a little order.